The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is in the process
of developing two yearly and quarterly GDP (gross domestic product)
accounting schemes to calculate GDP in the years after 2006 during
which an economic census will not be carried out, said Xu Xianchun,
director-general of the NBS' Department of National Economic
Accounts, according to a report by Shanghai Securities
News on Tuesday.
The first national economic census, which formally began on
December 31, 2004, was designed to draw an economic panorama of the
country's fast-expanding secondary and tertiary industries and
establish a database of all economic sectors.
The new yearly GDP accounting scheme will be divided into 94
categories based on current industries, and the quarterly scheme
will cover 19 major industries.
The first census indicated that China's GDP in 2004 was 15.99
trillion yuan (about US$2 trillion), 2.3 trillion yuan (US$285
billion) more than previously thought, up 16.8 percent. In view of
this, last December the NBS accordingly revised earlier GDP figures
since 1993.
According to an official from the Economic Census Office,
different statistic resources were what resulted in the huge
difference between the yearly report and the economic census.
Li Deshui, director of the NBS, also pointed out?at a
recent press conference that the difference was as a result of an
oversight in statistical data concerning the tertiary industry in
regular surveys.
Li said that before 1980, the national accounting system under
the planned economic system was based on the material production
system (MPS). But since the 1990s, China has been gradually
integrating?with the internationally applied System of
National Accounts (SNA).
Xu said the NBS will publicize the schemes once they have been
finalized.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has encouraged all member
countries to improve the transparency of statistics, which is what
China, after joining IMF's General Data Distribution System (GDDS),
aims to do with the new accounting schemes, Xu added.
(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, February 16, 2006)
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